


Bound

by Mobi_On_A_Mission



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Kidnapping, Rescue Missions, Somewhat, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, basically it's not super graphic but this stuff is here you've been warned, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28847070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mobi_On_A_Mission/pseuds/Mobi_On_A_Mission
Summary: It was always like this. They came for him again, pried him off the cold floor of his cell. He thrashed and pulled, trying to shake them off. There were two men, one at each arm, each one covered in face tattoos and muscles. They towered above him, and when he thrashed they didn’t so much as budge. It was no use. Murphy wasn’t strong enough to fight them off.Murphy was captured by Sangeda for questioning about the thief he'd been running around with. Emori just hoped she could save him in time.
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12
Collections: The t100 Writers for BLM Initiative





	Bound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstorms/gifts), [sirfeit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirfeit/gifts).



> Please read the tags. This is more violent and potentially triggering than any fic I've posted before.
> 
> This fic was inspired by the song Snowbound, which you can listen to [here](https://soundcloud.com/melodyweaver/snowbound)!

It was always like this. They came for him again, pried him off the cold floor of his cell. He thrashed and pulled, trying to shake them off. There were two men, one at each arm, each one covered in face tattoos and muscles. They towered above him, and when he thrashed they didn’t so much as budge. It was no use. Murphy wasn’t strong enough to fight them off.

His muscles burned where they’d poked him with flaming iron. His head throbbed and the room spun. How much blood had he lost? Did he have a concussion? There was no way to know, not like he could do anything about it anyway. He was in their captivity, taken without care to his survival. Honestly, they probably preferred if he died. But he apparently had information they needed, so he didn’t get that mercy.

They pulled him through a long underground corridor, warm damp air making his stomach turn. They tugged him to the side, through a heavy wooden door into a small room. It was barely big enough for the singular wooden table inside it and the two stools, one at either end.

The men forced him into the chair and bound his arms to the thick wooden dowels underneath him. His head lolled to the side, and he could just make out the stains of blood in the table’s wood. His stomach churned, and he half gagged before biting his lip, righting himself, and sitting in silence.

The men—or guards, they probably thought they were—stood at either side of Murphy. They never spoke a word to him. In fact, no one here ever spoke to him, unless it was a question or a threat. Murphy never spoke to them either. At first he’d thrown back biting remarks, but it didn’t get him anywhere. All it earned him was extra burns. These people were impenetrable; he couldn’t psych them out. No, none of his usual methods worked. Just like the Trikru warriors who interrogated him back before everything that had happened since, these people could not be persuaded. They wanted answers, and if they didn’t get answers he was the one who had to pay.

Murphy’s heartbeat picked up when the door creaked open with a high pitched whine, and a light-haired woman walked through. He clenched his jaw and mindlessly tugged against his restraints, trying fruitlessly to escape. It was _her_ , the woman he couldn’t stand to be near more than anyone else. The one who asked the questions. The one who dictated his punishments even if she would never deliver them herself.

No, this woman, his tormentor, always remained perfectly clean. She didn’t so much as chip a fucking nail. Today she was dressed in a sleek black dress, no doubt a relic of the world pre-bomb. Not a lick of armor on her, in stark contrast to everyone else Murphy had seen since he was captured.

She didn’t seem to let any emotion get to her either, didn’t wince at his screams or the hiss of burning metal on his skin, gurgling of his breath in water, crack of a whip against his back. All she’d ever do was cock her head to the side, look Murphy straight in the eye, and ask again.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

Murphy spat, then coughed at how dry his mouth was. When was the last time they’d given him water to drink? Longer than he was comfortable with. He chuckled to himself. As if he were comfortable with anything that happened to him these days.

“Where did you meet Emori?”

Murphy sat silent. A whip cracked at his back, and he jolted. The first one was always the worst.

“Where?”

The whip cracked again.

“You know he’ll stop if you tell me what I want to know. It’s that easy. We just want you to answer a few questions, and we’ll let you go. Isn’t that right?” She paused for a second. “ _Isn’t dei aight?_ ” she repeated in trig, nodding to the guard.

“ _Sha_ ,” the man whipping him responded.

In that moment, Murphy regretted not paying more attention when Emori had translated things for him. He hadn’t been interested in learning the language of his former captors. Stupidly, he hadn’t thought of the inevitability that his next captors would speak the same language. The only decent grounder he’d met so far had been Emori herself.

“Where did you meet Emori- the woman with the spiral face tattoo? We know you’re fond of her, John. Where did you meet her?”

Tears pricked at his eyes as the torment continued. The whip cracked again and again and again. Murphy’s back grew wet, and he could only imagine it was his own blood running down his back.

“Where’d you meet the girl?”

Murphy sobbed, and eventually snapped. “What the fuck do you care!” he yelled, trying and failing to hold back tears. “She’s a petty thief, don’t you have anything better to waste your time on?”

The woman let a sly smile slide over her face for the first time Murphy had ever seen. “She’s much more than a thief, boy. Try more like crime lord. Now.” She leaned forward. “If you keep covering for her, we’re going to have to assume you’re working with her.” She shrugged. “But if she’s just playing you in this whole thing, just tell us what you know and we can have you out of here in no time.”

Crime lord… yeah, that wasn’t something that had come up in any of his conversations with Emori. But somehow, he trusted her. If she was a crime lord like the woman suggested, she had to have a good reason. He would never turn on Emori; he could never tell. He hadn’t known Emori for long, but he could never give her up like this. Not like he gave up The 100 back when Trikru captured him. This time he would do what was right and protect this mad force of a woman. It was ironic, really. For as strong as she was, somehow Emori ended up needing his help just like he needed hers.

Murphy didn’t say anything more that day. He sat there and took the beatings until the woman stood up, face betraying no emotion, and left the room. The guards released him from his place on the chair and dragged him back to his cell. Murphy slumped in their hold, his arms burning from carrying his weight where his legs couldn’t. Soon enough they reached his cell and the guards threw him on the floor. They crowded in after him, each one taking a wrist and cuffing it to the wall.

He gobbled up the food and water they gave him almost as quickly as they set in on the ground, then again the door was shut, the key latched, and he was left alone in the dark.

The only light came from a small window far above his head. That tiny window was all he had to tell him what time of day it was. It was a small blessing, the predictability. They always came to get him as the sun rose, then threw him back in his cell as the sun set. While it was dark, he was alone.

It was almost worse, the time he spent alone. Nothing to occupy his mind but the pain and loneliness, memories of brief moments of happiness playing on repeat in his mind. He missed Emori more than anything, wished she could be there to hold him and tell him that everything would be alright.

Murphy curled up into a fetal position and wrapped his arms around his legs. The chains chafed at his skin. The scratching of the chains against the floor was the only sound he could hear. He picked them up and dropped them again, finding some strange comfort in just being able to _hear_ something, to control some tiny part of his reality.

_Clank. Clank. Clank._

* * *

Emori pushed open the door to the trading post, squinting to keep out the dust from the sandstorm. Looked like she was going to be here a while.

There were a handful of people inside when she got there, and none of them looked up from their drinks or conversation. Emori pulled the door shut behind her with a thud and studied the patrons for the sign of Sangedakru. It was mostly Trikru, with a single Azgeda man sitting at the bar. His muscles were tense, eyes darting around the room. None of these people looked to be a threat to Emori. She tentatively removed her scarf from the bottom of her face to hang down behind her and sat a few stools down from the Azgeda traveler.

The barkeep made his way over to Emori, and she lifted her canteen up to place on the counter. She slid a coin across the counter to pay for the water.

He raked his eyes over her body. “Are yu looking gon the City of Light, strik lady?”

Emori snorted. “Som bilaik dei.” The City of Light had only stolen from her—stolen Otan—but she wouldn’t get into specifics. The less these people knew about her and what she was doing, the better. Besides, she couldn’t get Otan back. When she traveled to Arcadia, she heard the news. He was dead. Not only changed, but dead. She shivered at the thought.

Now, though, all her focus was on rescuing John. Emori couldn’t afford to dwell on the dead, not when the living needed her. She’d only seen a flash, when he was taken from the forest, underneath the scarves of his captors. She couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t see if she knew them, but they were definitely Sangedakru.

She’d followed them for as long as she could, until she was confident she knew where they were going and she could stop to regroup. She had not been ready for a trip across the desert with what she had on her—just her clothes and her dagger. Her stomach twisted, knowing hebe tortured if she didn’t stop it. But there was no choice, not if she wanted to make it out alive. She just had to pray they wouldn’t hurt him too bad, wouldn’t kill him before she got there.

This sandstorm only made matters worse. She was already a day behind John and his captors, so by the time this let up they’d have even more time to deal with him. Emori had been there before, once, back when she was just a child. They interrogated her for information on Baylis, said she was lucky they didn’t kill her on sight for being a stain on the bloodline.

Emori had hardly made it out alive. She remembered crying into Otan’s chest when she got out, but not before Baylis interrogated her about what information she’d given away. She’d spoken—it was the only way out—and Baylis showed mercy, only making her do extra chores as punishment.

The barkeep disappeared into the back with Emori’s canteen, and she took inventory of the trading post. It was a simple, good business. It stood on the fork of the road between Trikruland, Azgeda, and Sangeda. Trade, food, drink, and beds. Everyone there, it seemed, were travelers. It was a gold mine for petty theft, and Emori herself had been there before to steal from the merchants. Thankfully she hadn’t been caught, or she wouldn’t be able to show her face there again.

There were perks to being good at her job. Number one being the privilege of being alive. Emori knew far too many wastelanders who made so much as one mistake and lost their lives for it.

Emori looked at each and every one of the patrons, and unfortunately she didn’t recognize a single one of them. So much for finding help. Even if she found someone she knew, she’d have a hell of a time convincing them to help her rescue John from Sangedakru. It was a risky mission, and one that didn’t come with the prize of any treasure at the end. The only treasure would be John. He was more than enough for Emori, but none of the other thieves would care about that.

The barkeep came back with Emori’s water, and she flashed him her best innocent smile.

“ _When do you think the storm will let up?_ ” she asked in trig. By her estimation it could be as much as a few days.

“ _No way to know_ ,” he replied with a shrug. “ _We’ll just have to wait. Care for something to eat?_ ”

Emori huffed and nodded. _Idiot_. But at the very least, he was a salesman.

She waited and waited and waited. Eventually the sun set once more and she retired to a bed upstairs. It pained her to sleep when for all she knew John was being set in boiling water as she did so, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t walk through a sandstorm. All she could do was wait it out and get rest in the meantime. She’d need it for the long journey ahead.

It was two days later that she was finally able to set out. The sandstorm had passed sometime in the evening, leaving a clear and sunny sunset in its wake. Emori refilled her water once more, made sure she had enough food to get there and back if need be, and set out.

At first she followed the road. Once she got a ways into Sangeda, the road disappeared and all that was left was an expansive desert covered with blowing sand.

Emori looked up to the sky and locked her eyes on the North Star. _Polaris_. Due north, that was the way to Sangedakru’s bunker. She thought back to when she first met John, how she whispered _due north_ into his ear. There she was again, whispering the same thing in the desert like a prayer. It was the only hope she had to find and save him. She had to save him.

She walked throughout the night, keeping Polaris firmly in her view when she wasn’t checking for threats. The sun rose on the Dead Zone, and usually that meant Emori would seek shelter and hole up to get out of the sun and rest until it was dark again. But no, she’d lost enough time already. She couldn’t afford to waste any more sleeping.

Emori pressed on. As the sun got higher in the sky it grew hotter, but Emori paid no mind to the sun beating down on her back. Whenever she started to feel weak she took a drink of her water or ate a bit of food, and reminded herself why she was doing this: _John._

John. Her John. So sweet, so loving, so alive. It was all her fault this had happened to him. Just before he’d been kidnapped, they had a big fight. Emori couldn’t even remember the specifics of it, it was so stupid. She’d gotten mad at him for eating more than his share of their latest catch, and he bit back at her for not setting enough traps. Eventually he’d stormed off into the forest.

She’d sulked for a while before realizing John had been gone far too long. She’d gone out looking for him, only to find him bound and gagged, forced to walk by a rope tied around his hips. This was all her fault. Without her they wouldn’t have a reason to kidnap him, and he wouldn’t have been so careless as to be found. She couldn’t owe him anymore, couldn’t let herself leech off of him and leave him for dead. She couldn’t be without him, couldn’t be so well and finally alone. She had to press on.

Emori was barely moving by the time the sun set once more. She was so tired, so hot and so dry. At least the darkness would offer something of a reprieve from the sun.

She looked up in front of her, searching for Polaris to guide her on. It wasn’t there. Slowly she turned around, searching and searching…

It took until she had nearly turned in the opposite direction to spot it. Emori sunk to her knees, looking up at Polaris and her footprints in the sand off to the side. She hadn’t been walking straight. She’d veered off course, perhaps even gotten farther from John that she’d been when the sun set.

More importantly, perhaps, she had no idea where she was. John might not even have been north from here. She had no idea. Emori pulled out her canteen. Only half left now. Too late to turn round, not like she’d even know which way would get her out of the Dead Zone anyway. She just hoped she would last long enough to get to John. What else could all this be for?

Tears leaked down Emori’s cheeks, and she shook her head, trying to cut them off. Wasting water would only make things harder on her.

She had no option but to travel north. At least that way, if she traveled only by night, she knew she would be walking in one direction. Eventually she had to get somewhere she recognized, somewhere with people.

Emori could hardly see straight. The exhaustion was slowly creeping through her veins, and the cold of the desert night rattled through her bones. She shivered uncontrollably, walking as best as she could toward Polaris. She had to at least hope she’d find John there.

It wasn’t even quite sunrise yet when Emori collapsed onto the ground, nothing but sand all around her. Hope dwindling quickly, she sent a wordless prayer for John.

* * *

The first times Murphy tried to escape, he still had hope. He fought from the second they captured him. He kicked and screamed through the gag. When they took it out to give him food and water, he tried to use sly words to get them off his back. But none of it worked. He only stopped fighting when they threw him on the stool and beat him mercilessly.

The next time he tried to escape, he had a plan. Murphy set his sights on the little window up high in his cell. Maybe if he could carve grooves into the wall, he thought, he’d be able to scale it someday. After that they started chaining him to the wall.

The third time he tried to escape, it was when the guards came to grab him for his daily interrogation. Murphy waited until they released his chains from the wall and grabbed his arms. He used the chain to capture one of the guards in a chokehold. It felt like it was going to work. The other guard merely knocked him out and hit him a little harder that day.

Soon, Murphy lost count of how many times he’d tried to escape, again and again. The more time went on and the more plans failed, the less hope he had of ever getting out. He lay in his cell, shivering on the cold and damp floor. His wrists ached—last time he had enough light to see them by they were purple from the bruising.

Once, he’d thought Emori would come for him. _Idiot_. She didn’t need him. He was a fun game to play, for a little while, but he was a fool to think Emori would risk her life to come save him.

It hurt to think of Emori. What they had had been great and felt more real than anything he’d experienced in his seventeen—or was it eighteen now—years of life, but it wasn’t real. It was just a fever dream in between torments. Maybe it would be better if he’d never met her in the first place. He and Jaha’s disciples could’ve just gone back to Arcadia. They wouldn’t have suffered so many deaths. He wouldn’t have gotten trapped in the lighthouse bunker for three months. He wouldn’t have been tortured yet again. Hell, even Emori would’ve been better of. She wouldn’t have lost Otan if Murphy and Jaha hadn’t made it to the island.

But Emori was good. She was wild and rugged and a little bit of a disaster, but she was good. She had a bright smile and a badass hand, and never made fun of him for everything he didn’t know. Emori taught him so much and cared for him so much. Murphy didn’t know what love was, not really, but he thought he loved Emori. If there was anyone in the world he loved, it was her.

He needed something to distract his mind, to take it off of Emori. The silence was deafening. Murphy hated being able to hear his own thoughts, and in those long nights alone that was all he had to keep himself company. Bored out of his mind, Murphy started to sing. “Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety nine bottles of beer… take one down, pass it around, ninety eight bottles of beer on the wall…”

Murphy only made it a few bottles down before sobs wracked through him, shaking his body where it lay on the floor. He was alone. So alone, so alone, so alone. He couldn’t breathe. No one was coming for him. No one was coming for him, and he couldn’t escape. There was no hope for him left.

The next time they took Murphy for interrogation, why not just tell them everything? What was the point of holding out, when it delayed the inevitable and gave him more pain than anything else?

Murphy didn't care if he died. It didn’t really matter at the end of the day. His life was already worse than death, so what would be the problem?

Murphy cried himself to sleep that night, hoping against all hope he wouldn’t wake up.

The next thing he knew, the guards were dragging him to his feet once more. He slumped and his head lolled to the side, not bothering to use the muscle and energy to keep it up. They dragged him like a ragdoll down the long dimly lit corridor to the interrogation room.

After the woman shut the door behind her, she handed the guards pliers and one of them fixed the tool on Murphy’s pointer finger nail.

The memories flooded back of the first time this had happened. The Trikru interrogators were tougher than the Sangeda woman, or perhaps Murphy had grown used to it by now. Either way that was the worst pain Murphy could remember, even through the hazy memories of his exhaustion and trauma.

Murphy recoiled at the memory and the first pulls of the pliers on his nails. “Wai- wai- wait! I’ll tell you I’ll tell you just don’t do it!”

The guard lifted the pliers away from him, and the woman interrogator tilted her head to the side.

“Good to hear you’re feeling cooperative today. Where did you meet Emori?”

“In the Dead Zone,” he said, heart pounding. “I met her in the Dead Zone.”

“Okay.” The woman nodded. “How long ago was this?”

Murphy told her everything she asked. Tears leaked out of his eyes as he did so, but every time he hesitated for too long on a question, the guard would tug on his freshly grown fingernail and he’d yelp before telling the woman exactly what she wanted to know.

He didn’t understand why any of the information was important. If Emori really were a crime boss, as they said, wouldn’t they be asking him more questions about her business? As it was, they were asking mostly about his and Emori’s relationship and a man Emori had only mentioned in passing: Baylis. She’d spoken of him from time to time, but Murphy could tell he was a touchy subject. Emori had a lot of pain and shame and regret surrounding Baylis. He’d beaten and manipulated her, for years and years as a child. It was only recently Emori and Otan had struck out on their own.

The interrogator didn’t seem to believe him when he said Emori left Baylis.

“Our intel says Emori is Baylis’ successor. Are you to suggest this is not true?

“Well maybe your intel is bad.” He tried to deadpan but it didn’t work through his choked sobs.

The guard pulled at his nail.

“I swear I’m telling the truth!” he sobbed. “She told me she’s not working with Baylis anymore!”

The woman gave the signal, and the guard stopped pulling. “Very well. Let’s continue. What about this Otan, have you met him?”

Murphy could hear a scuffling sound from beyond the door, but the woman seemed unphased. “Um- yeah. Yeah. I met him.”

The woman tilted her head to the other side. “Care to elaborate?”

Thankfully Murphy didn’t have to, because at that moment the door burst open and a masked figure entered, fist knocked into the side of the interrogator’s head, making her slump off her chair onto the floor.

The figure looked up to size up the guards, and Murphy saw her eyes. _Emori_. His lips formed the shape of her name, but no sound came out.

Emori knocked out one guard while Murphy distracted the other by rocking his stool backwards and hitting his back on the floor. The thud hit him hard, and sharp pain split through him where his wounds scraped across the concrete. His head spun and he groaned out in pain.

Murphy watched helplessly from below as Emori took on the second guard. He threw his body weight at her and she quickly deflected, destabilizing him so he’d fall on the ground. Murphy couldn’t see what happened next, but the thud told him all he needed to know.

Emori rushed over to Murphy’s side and untied his binds from the stool. Always the practicalist, she hadn’t even acknowledged him yet she was so focused on her task. Through her gloves, Murphy could see blood leaking out. There was blood smeared on her eyelid and across her cheek, but otherwise she looked fine. Beautiful, even.

Murphy didn’t know what to think. He’d lost hope of ever leaving this place or seeing Emori again, and here she was like a knight in shining armor saving him.

She helped him to his feet, and he only groaned a little bit on the way up. She traced his face with her gloved fingers, deep eyes glimmering and holding him in her hands like he was something fragile.

“I’m so sorry, John.” She shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m so sorry I couldn't get here sooner.”

“Shhh.” Murphy lifted his shaky hands to wrap around her back. “You’re here now, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too, John.” She leaned her forehead against his and breathed a sigh of relief. “Now let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Beautiful People!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic! It was prompted by the wonderful [redstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstorms/pseuds/redstorms) aka [sirfeit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirfeit/) through The 100 Fic for BLM Initiative. I've never written a fic quite like this, so please let me know your thoughts! Also I want to give a big thank you to [Lynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessheda) for making the lovely moodboard that accompanies this fic.
> 
> The 100 Fic for BLM Initiative is going strong, and we would love to take your prompts in exchange for your donations to a good cause. Please check out our [carrd](https://t100fic-for-blm.carrd.co/) if you are interested! You can also find me on tumblr [@mobi-on-a-mission](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mobi-on-a-mission).
> 
> Much Love!  
> -Mobi ❤️


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